


Not Everything Changes, Charlie Brown

by TheBringerOfPain



Category: Peanuts
Genre: Depression, F/M, I Killed A Beloved Character, Nostalgia, The Author Regrets Nothing, i love making people suffer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 13:01:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16787461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBringerOfPain/pseuds/TheBringerOfPain
Summary: Charlie Brown is now nineteen and in an existential crisis as he ponders the things that have slipped away from him as he's grown older, so much so that he's in danger of losing focus on what he has been able to hold onto.





	Not Everything Changes, Charlie Brown

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first entry in Archive Of Our Own, so the formatting may not be the greatest. This is a story I wrote earlier this year based on a little inspiration I had. It's an odd one. Who writes fanfiction for Charlie Brown? Anyway, hope you guys like it. Just as a forewarning though, a lot of my storytelling is bittersweet. Not apologizing. Let me know your thoughts!

Charles Brown stared at the laptop screen with a certain person’s Facebook profile in view. Anxiety was built up in his stomach like too much air in a balloon and the laptop’s mouse was hovering over the ‘Add Friend’ button. Charles wore a yellow baseball cap to hide the fact that he had very little hair, a yellow shirt with a black lightning bolt in a line across it, and black shorts. Just above his upper lip was a wispy mustache and around his chin was prickly stubbles of hair that spread down half of his neck. Charles looked at the name of the person’s Facebook profile again.  
Super Redhead.  
It wasn’t the girl’s real name obviously, but her picture proved she was undeniably the one Charles wanted to get in touch with. A pale red-haired girl with eyes that were wide, seemed to sparkle, and looked like they were staring straight at him.  
Charles shut his eyes, wanting to kick himself. “You have a chance, so take it. Don’t get scared now.”  
Using a hand that trembled, Charles finally clicked on the ‘Add Friend’ button and the friend request was sent. Now all he had to do was wait. He sat there staring, zoning out every once in a while but shaking himself back into the present whenever he realized he had mentally wandered off.  
Finally, Charles’ heart leaped up into his mouth when he saw the notification telling him that ‘Super Redhead’ accepted his friend request. He refreshed the profile page with his hand feverishly gripping the mouse now. Every inch of him felt tense and hot with sweat. Now that he was Facebook friends with ‘Redhead’, he could see stuff that she posted.  
Then Charles saw her post at the top and his sweat instantly changed to ice, freezing himself and his chair over.  
‘Engaged To Jim Schultz’.  
Charles slowly sat back, feeling the words sink into him like a knife. He was too late. He waited too long, and now all of his opportunities were spent.  
When he started high school, Charles had finally retrieved the courage to at least approach the red-haired girl and connect with her to be friends. They had even exchanged phone numbers and gotten to spend a great deal of time together, doing a variety of different things while they were at it. Whether it was walking through the park, fishing at the lake near Charles’ house, grabbing fast food with Lucy and Linus, or seeing comic book movies on opening day, Charles and the red-haired girl had always managed to keep themselves from being bored. There was just one small problem.  
Despite how tightly knit together they got, and despite everything they did through the seemingly endless string of high school semesters, Charles never found the courage to ask her if they could be something more, which was what he wanted more than anything. Once high school was over, the red-haired girl was offered a scholarship at another college a state away, and she accepted the offer without hesitation. Not even a year later, she was apparently already engaged to some guy Charles knew nothing about.  
“Who is this Jim? Is he really as great as she thinks she is?” Charles wondered aloud. He was tempted to look at Jim’s profile to find out exactly that. He hated looking at Jim’s face, which was smiling alongside the girl’s as if gloating.  
“Rats!” Charles exclaimed, finally giving in and checking Jim’s profile. He was a graphic artist and blogger, with a Bachelor’s in English. He was well on his way to publishing his first collection of comic strips called The Peanuts Gallery, whatever that was supposed to mean.  
Charles rested his head on the back of his seat and looked up at the ceiling with a shaky breath.  
“Can you believe this, Snoopy?” He asked. A moment of silence passed as if Charles was waiting for someone to answer him.  
“Yeah, you’re probably right. If it’s me, then it’s not so far-fetched,” he said. He stared at the laptop screen again and frowned. With a whimper, he shut the laptop. In a stack beside it was unfinished comic strips Charles had attempted to draw himself and a letter he had sent to an old pen pal of his that ended up getting sent back to him.  
“Good grief,” he muttered.  
He looked out the window beside him at the backyard. Resting in the center was Snoopy’s red doghouse with his old typewriter sitting on the roof. Most of its color had rusted away and even from where Charles was sitting he could see places on it that was chipped and dented. The sight caused Charles’ heart to sink and throb like an insidious migraine.

“When I graduated from high school, I really had no passion to go to college. I felt like I had learned everything school could teach me—or at least, everything I wanted school to teach me. It’s just like Linus once said. All you have to know is that ‘i’ comes before ‘e’, except after ‘c’. I thought I would become a comic book writer and artist. Maybe even make my own huge comic book franchise and make appearances at Comic-Cons around the country. I would have my own booth and sign copies of different comic issues, and I would marry—marry her—and have kids and a big home and a cool backyard for my kids to play in just like I did with my friends when I was a kid. But I’m still here in this town, all I’m doing is delivering pizzas, and most of my friends have moved away to other parts of the country to study in different universities, getting to do what they always wanted to do. The only friends still around are you and Linus. There’s my sister Sally too of course, but she doesn’t really talk to me much. I guess what I’m saying is, there’s so much I want to do but I haven’t been going anywhere while my other friends actually have been. It makes me feel like I went wrong somewhere. And now, I feel lonelier than I ever have in my life.”  
Sitting on the other side of the booth with a cigarette between her fingers was Charles’ old frenemy Lucy. Her black hair was longer than it used to be just several years ago and her eyes now always looked exhausted. Her skin was paler too, and she wore a plain blue T-shirt and black shorts. Lucy still had her own psychiatrist booth that she set up when she was a kid trying to earn money in some way.  
“I feel like your stories get longer every time you come here,” she said.  
“When you grow older, your problems grow bigger too,” Charles replied.  
“Have you ever thought of talking to your parents about all this? Maybe getting some help from them? That’s technically what they’re supposed to be there for.”  
“They’ve never really been there for me, even when I really need them. Even now they’re out of town on a vacation. And even when they are there for me, I honestly can’t even understand a single thing they’re saying.”  
Lucy nodded. “Yeah, my parents were never really around much either, and I never understood them much either. It was almost as if they spoke a foreign language.” She rested one hand under her chin. “I miss when your problems were as simple as something like ‘I’m depressed during Christmas’.”  
Charles frowned. “That’s not exactly ‘simple’.”  
“Those were easier fixes,” Lucy pointed out. “What you’re going through is literally an existential crisis. Things in your life have changed—dramatically—and you wish that things were able to stay the same. There’s a word for that, Charlie Brown. It’s called ‘nostalgia’. Believe me when I say I know exactly what you mean.”  
Charles brightened a bit. “Really? You do?”  
“Absolutely, and speaking of things being different, five bucks please,” Lucy said, holding out a cup.  
Charles’ eyes widened. “Good grief! Five bucks? I remember when it was just $3.50!”  
“Times are hard and I need to get food for me and Linus tonight. Now please pay up, you’re holding up the line.”  
Charles looked behind him and gasped when he saw that there was indeed a line of people waiting, and it was a long one too.  
“More and more people seem to have more issues they need to talk about,” Charles said while digging in his pocket for cash.  
“More and more people are diagnosed with stuff now,” Lucy replied with a shrug, taking a five-dollar bill Charles handed her.

It was Sally’s last year in high school, where she got to be in the semester’s play, Romeo and Juliet. She was cast as Juliet, which was the part she had wanted all along, but now that the play was today, she was growing steadily more nervous.  
“I think you’re going to do just fine. Your director wouldn’t have picked you if she didn’t think you could handle it,” Charles said to Sally over the phone while driving.  
“I know you’re trying to encourage me, big brother, but it’s not working,” Sally insisted.  
“What will work then?”  
“If you were already here backstage with me.”  
“I’ll be there as soon as I can but I have to deliver one more pizza before punching out. The play doesn’t start for another hour anyway.”  
“But audience members are already here!”  
“It’s not like they can see you as long as you’re backstage.”  
“If I peek through the curtain though they see me!”  
“Then don’t peek through the curtain. It’s a pretty simple solution. You’ve rehearsed a lot for this play, right?”  
“Right…”  
“And you still have the script on you, right?”  
“Of course.”  
“Then until I get there, just keep practicing your lines, and say them exactly the way you would while you’re onstage.”  
“That doesn’t guarantee I’ll get them right. Remember when I said ‘hockey stick’ that one time during a play?” Sally asked.  
“That was a long time ago,” Charles pointed out. “You’re better than that now.”  
Sally took a deep breath, which sounded loud over the speaker. “Okay. I’ll do my best.”  
Charles smiled. “That’s the spirit. I’ll be there as soon as possible.”  
He drove the rest of the way to the person’s house he needed to deliver a pizza to, going as fast as he could so that he could race back to the pizza place and clock out and get to Sally’s play in time to help her before it starts. Anticipation was building in Charles’ stomach like baking bread. His muscles were achingly tense after knocking on the door. There was a long pause before he finally heard the sound of a sliding lock on the other side and the door swung open, revealing a frazzled woman who appeared to be in her late thirties to early forties. Her brown hair was bunched up looking like a tangled wig with several long hairs sticking out in random directions as if she had just rolled out of bed. Her eyes were half-lidded and bloodshot, her purple lipstick was smeared, and she wore a scarlet V-neck that revealed a little more than Charles felt comfortable seeing. Tucked between her sets of teeth was a cigarette with a thin trail of smoke. In one hand she held a bottle of beer. Behind her, Charles could see the air was thick with smoke in the living room. Sitting on the couch with a cigarette and beer of his own was a man whom Charles had never seen before, wearing a stained T-shirt and shorts. He was staring at the TV, completely disinterested in Charles.  
“Hello, Charlie,” the woman said.  
Charles winced at hearing the nickname. “Hi, Mrs. Vex. I’ve got your pizza here.”  
Vex stared at the pizza as if he had brought a wet rat in a cage instead. “You’re six minutes later than promised.”  
“Sorry, Mrs. Vex, my sister is preparing for a school play.”  
Vex snatched the pizza box from Charles’ hands. “Next time this happens, I call your boss.”  
“Yes, Mrs. Vex. Sorry again, Mrs. Vex.”  
Vex shrugged as if she didn’t care what Charles did next time and slammed the door in his face, leaving him without a much hoped for tip.

Once Charles finally got to the school and made his way backstage, Sally was standing alone gripping the script and frowning lasers at him. Charles would’ve had something snarky to say, but was stopped short when he saw the satin gown his sister wore, which he couldn’t deny was beautiful. Her yellow hair crowned her head in long curls.  
“Sally, you look beautiful,” Charles said with a smile.  
“No! I look like a mess! This whole play is going to be a mess!” Sally replied with her arms up in the air. Charles walked up to her.  
“You’re in your last semester of high school. You’re too old to be throwing a fit like this.”  
“Throwing a fit asserts your desire for justice,” Sally insisted with her chin up.  
“The future of this generation is looking brighter every day,” Charles replied. Then he noticed something over Sally’s ear. A red smear.  
“Sally, are you bleeding?” Charles asked.  
Sally blinked. “I am?”  
“Yep, right behind your ear. How could that have happened?”  
Sally felt where there was a cut along the skin. “I—must’ve scratched that place too hard.”  
“Are you really that nervous?”  
“Maybe.”  
“Here,” Charles said, grabbing a folded napkin from the table of snacks beside them. He reached back behind Sally’s ear and dabbed at the blood for the skin to clear up. The cut line was still there but it was too well hidden for anyone to notice.  
“Ow!” Sally cried, flinching.  
“Stay still,” Charles said.  
Sally took a deep breath, which came out trembling. She turned back to her brother when he was done.  
“Why are you always so good to me?” She asked.  
Charles flashed half a smile and slightly beamed. “Because who else will?”  
Before Sally could respond, a new voice cut between them. “Hey, Sally, I was just wondering if everything was alr—oh.”  
Charles looked behind him to see Lucy’s brother Linus, wearing a blue sport coat over a velvet doublet and an embroidery made out of fake gold to play the part of Romeo. His hair was wispy and light as ever.  
Linus coursed his hand through it. “Wow. You look—very beautiful, Sally.”  
Sally blushed. “Why thank you.”  
Charles rolled his eyes. “Good grief.”  
“Hi, Charles. Lucy told me you went to see her at her stand earlier today,” Linus said.  
“Yeah. I don’t know if I’m going to go as often as I usually do anymore. It’s getting too expensive,” Charles admitted.  
“Somehow I have a feeling that if you act nice, she’ll give you a discount. A big one too,” Linus said.  
“Why do you say that? And are you really wearing your sports coat in the play?”  
“Of course I am.”  
“Romeo never wore a sports coat.”  
“I get to play the role of Romeo, therefore I get to play my own interpretation of him. Everyone has their own way of approaching the characters they embody,” Linus said.  
“Everyone, listen up!” Someone shouted somewhere else backstage. Charles looked to see a blonde woman with lips submerged in scarlet lipstick and a one-piece red flower dress. “We go on in ten minutes!”  
Sally covered her mouth and her eyes widened in terror. The other hand fumbled for Charles’ hand. Charles willingly took it and squeezed.  
“Help me,” Sally whispered.  
“Just think,” Charles said. “I’m not the one directing this play. That should give you a new level of confidence. You know that you won’t mess up in some big way because your ‘blockhead’ of a brother isn’t the one giving you all the direction.”  
Sally looked thoughtful about it, nodding. “Yeah, now that you mention it, that is pretty encouraging.”  
“That’s the spirit. Now go and put on a good show. I believe in you. I’ll be in the audience rooting for you,” Charles said.  
Sally smiled. “Okay.” She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders.

Lucy was waiting for Charles when he moved down an aisle of seats in the auditorium, staring down at her phone.  
“Well? Will your sister be able to do this?” She asked.  
“She’ll be fine,” Charles said, sitting next to her with his hands folded in his lap.  
“She better be. She has to balance out the obvious quality Linus will have in his performance.”  
Charles squinted, as if Lucy was out of focus in his sight. “Why do you doubt Linus so much?”  
Lucy slipped her phone into her pocket and folded her arms, whisking her head back to get a few strands of hair out of her eyes.  
“I doubt him because no matter how much he’s grown, he always seems to need help with everything. He is simply incapable of taking care of himself in a lot of ways. He never did get rid of that stupid blanket! He made it into a sports coat and wears it all the time!”  
Charles frowned. “It sounds to me like you’re tired of having to ‘baby’ him. You wish he can be independent.”  
Lucy rolled her eyes. “Thanks, doctor. You’re practically doing my job.”  
“Five bucks, please,” Charles replied with a mischievous grin.  
“Not even in your dreams, blockhead." The two of them sat there silently for a moment. The play was not for another five minutes and the auditorium was still loud with the sounds of people chatting, playing music, and laughing. It sounded more like a party than a lead-in to a play.  
Lucy sighed. “You still have to take care of Sally every now and then. At least she comes to her senses—eventually. When Linus convinced her to sit outside with him all night waiting for the Great Pumpkin, she eventually realized she had made a fool of herself and left him.”  
Charles nodded.  
“You’ve never had to get up early in the morning,” Lucy continued, “find out your sibling isn’t home, and go out and find her freezing to death out in the middle of a pumpkin patch. You’ve never had to wonder if you might get up one day and find your sibling dead in the street—or in the middle of a pumpkin patch, all because she believed in stupid fairy tales.”  
“I still had to take care of her a lot though. My parents wouldn’t really do it, so I had to,” Charles said gently.  
“Well, you and I were both in the same boat. How we took care of our siblings determined how well off they are now. Somehow, I feel like I failed Linus since he’s almost the same today as he was ten years ago,” Lucy replied.  
Charles didn’t answer as he contemplated whether or not Lucy was really right about that. Was her supervision over Linus really the reason why he was the way he was?  
Finally, the play began, and much to Charles’ relief, things went smoothly for Sally and Linus. Neither of them stumbled a bit in their lines, and Sally didn’t look nervous. She had a newfound confidence that appeared even stronger than she had it backstage when Charles was able to encourage her.  
Eventually, Sally was standing in a tower while Linus was on the ground below, both of them acting out Act 2.  
“She speaks!” Linus cried out. Though he was the one talking, Charles kept his gaze on Sally. Even from a distance, Charles could see the red on Sally’s cheeks, and it wasn’t makeup.  
“O, speak again, bright angel! For thou art as glorious to this night,” Linus continued. The more he talked, the more Sally blushed.  
“O Romeo, Romeo!” Sally blurted out once Linus finished his line. “Wherefore art thou Romeo?”  
“Right here,” Linus said.  
Both Charles and Lucy froze in their seats. Half of the audience laughed and snickered, clearly thrown off but also amused. In the corner of Charles’ eye, he could see the play director standing at the side of the stage dumbfounded. She covered her mouth in shock.  
That wasn’t part of the play. Juliet wasn’t supposed to be sure that Romeo could even hear her.  
Sally blinked. She was thinking the same thing as Charles and Lucy.  
“That blockhead,” Lucy whispered.  
Charles didn’t say anything.  
Sally looked down at Linus, pretending to notice him there for the first time. Sweat leaked off her brow.  
“Um, d-deny thy father and refuse thy name, or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I’ll no longer be a C-Capulet,” she said.  
“Okay,” Linus said. “Thy love thou—I thinketh that’s how you sayeth it.”  
Sally raised an eyebrow. Her breathing quickened and more sweat dripped from her head. “Thou meaneth it?”  
“Um, thou knoweth it,” Linus replied with a smile. He looked like he was about to cry.  
“This is painful to watch,” Charles muttered.  
Lucy looked more terrified than Charles. “This is a complete and total horror show.”  
“The scariest thing about this is that Linus means it. Every word,” Charles pointed out.  
Lucy looked over at him. “Are you serious?”  
“Yeah. The look on his face whenever he sees Sally is too easy to read,” Charles said.  
“I—I guess so,” Lucy said. Her shoulders relaxed and she looked more puzzled than furious now.  
Sally and Linus continued in their roles as normal for the rest of the show, but there was more confidence in their performances. In scenes where they were supposed to be sad, they looked like they were in danger of breaking into smiles. Their eyes glowed with purpose, as if they had finally found something they had been looking for for a long time.  
The more Charles watched, the more he felt something weighing down on his insides. He thought back to when he saw how ‘Super Redhead’ got engaged to someone in another part of the country. He remembered the undeniable light in her eyes, and it brought tears to his own.

Charles was quiet in the car when he drove Sally and Linus, who were being the opposite of quiet, back home with Lucy wringing her hands nervously in the passenger seat.  
“Big brother? Can Linus just come to our house for a little bit?” Sally asked over Charles’ shoulder.  
Charles nodded. “Yeah, yeah. Sure.”  
“Yes!” Sally exclaimed. She and Linus’s hands interlocked through each other on the space between them.  
“Rats,” Charles muttered under his breath.  
“Are you okay, Charlie Brown?” Lucy asked.  
“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” Charles said.  
He didn’t think he would be. All day up until the middle of the play he thought he was going to be able to keep what he discovered on Facebook in the back of his mind. When he first saw it, he was slightly phased but he didn’t allow it to really bother him. Now it was slowly creeping back into his mind and taking over all of his thoughts.  
Outside, a steady amount of dark clouds were forming off to the side and, like Charles’ memory of the morning creeping back into the forefront of his mind, was slowly creeping towards the neighborhood. Out of the corner of his eye, Charles saw a brief flash of lightning crack across the cloud mass.  
“That looks pretty bad,” Lucy said when she noticed it.  
For just a few seconds, Charles felt nervous, wondering if Snoopy hadn’t been let back into the house before he left. Then it hit him yet again.  
Snoopy was gone. He wasn’t outside or inside.  
Tears rose in Charles’ eyes, and this time they fell down his cheeks, leaving wet, thin traces behind. In all his life, despite everything he had gone through and everything he had had to put up with, he rarely cried. The only other time he could think of when he did was when Snoopy’s original owner found Snoopy and offered to take him back. Snoopy at first accepted the offer, but as he was leaving and everyone was there to say goodbye, Charles broke down and cried, along with all his friends, including Sally.  
It was just that one time. Spending nineteen years barely crying was a sign to Charles that he had a strong heart, but was it really meant to be?  
“Charlie Brown, are you crying?” Lucy asked.  
The tears kept coming and it started to rain outside now, pelting the front window and forcing Charles to turn on the windshield wipers.  
“Big brother, what’s wrong?” Sally asked.  
“What’s wrong, Charles?” Linus asked.  
Charles found his driveway and pulled into it. He put the car in park and turned the ignition off, seeing everything through blurry wet vision. He just sat there with his head hung. A tear slithered over the bridge of his nose and fell onto his lap.  
“I wasn’t brave enough to tell her,” he finally said.  
The car was silent. Everyone knew who Charles was talking about.  
Lucy reached out as if to touch Charles, but everyone stiffened when they heard a siren wailing outside.  
It was a weather siren. The storm was only going to get worse.  
“We need to get into the storm shelter,” Sally said.  
Charles wiped his eyes and got out of the car with Lucy, Linus, and Sally following suit. They headed around Charles’ house to the backyard, shoving against the resistance of the rain that was coming down in angry torrents. The rain was so hard and heavy it was even difficult to hear the thunder and the howling siren over it. For a moment, Charles looked up, and saw shades of sickly green in the clouds.  
Once they got to the doors of the storm shelter, Charles felt around for the handles, clutched them, and tried pulling the doors open.  
“I need help!” Charles cried.  
Sally, Linus, and Lucy lunged out at the handles themselves and pulled with Charles. Charles felt a surge of relief as the doors finally started to give way, allowing him and the others to make their way in and down the rocky steps.  
Using the chains hanging from the other sides of the doors, Charles pulled the doors shut and, while holding both chains in one hand, set the lock in place. The doors creaked and thudded in response to the winds outside.  
Thoroughly and hopelessly soaked, Charles sulked down the stairs. The shelter itself wasn’t much. It was all made of rock walls and a dusty couch was set against one of them. There were no windows, but Sally, Linus, and Lucy were able to light the place up as best they could with their phones.  
Charles sank in the couch with his head against one of the pillows. The rain continued pounding outside and the winds sounded like a violent whistle that wouldn’t end. Dread took control of Charles’ mind and he put his face in his hands.  
“Charlie Brown?” Lucy asked, sitting down next to him and edging close. Their shoulders weren’t quite touching, but Charles could slightly feel the warmth from Lucy’s body.  
“You sure are putting a lot of energy into caring about me right now,” Charles pointed out with his face still in his hands.  
“It’s because I do,” Lucy replied.  
Charles looked up at her. He was speechless.  
“You need to tell me what’s wrong. I’m a psychiatrist, remember?” Lucy asked with a wink and half a smile at the end.  
Charles sigh came heavy, like everything he thought about right then.  
“My parents are away and not here for me, most of my friends moved away, she’s getting married somewhere with some other guy, and Snoopy is—he’s—.” Charles’ eyes widened and terror shot up his throat.  
“Oh no, Snoopy’s typewriter!” He exclaimed. He sprang up and bolted towards the shelter doors.  
“No, wait, Charlie Brown, it’s too dangerous!” Lucy yelled after him.  
Charles froze once he reached the bottom of the steps leading up when he heard a terrible crashing sound like a tree falling over. He heard something like a hundred trains passing by at once outside, followed by tearing, shrieking, and hollering like nothing he had ever heard before. Their town had never had a storm this bad in his life.  
Fearing that the doors would fly open and he would get sucked out, Charles ran back to the couch and flung himself at Lucy’s side. They both clutched each other and held on. The noises continued, mixed now with thunder and wind that abused the shelter doors. They threatened to eventually give way.  
“There’s no easier way to say this,” Lucy cried out, “I don’t want to stay quiet like you did! I love you, Charlie Brown!”  
Charlie Brown held on to Lucy even tighter and shut his eyes, as if that would block out the horrendous, deadly sounds. They didn’t of course, but they also didn’t last much longer. Finally, there was silence except for a gentle drumming of rain.  
Charlie and Lucy let go of each other and looked into each other’s eyes, feeling their heartbeats run a marathon in their chests. It was hard to tell the difference between tears and rainwater on their faces but their eyes were red.  
Sally and Linus had been clinging on to each other too, their faces also soaked and their eyes raw and red. For an hour they stayed in the shelter and sat in silence. No one had their phones on anymore for light, so they were sitting in complete black. No one spoke a word. Sally’s and Linus’s hands stayed interlocked and Charlie and Lucy held on to each other in a half hug. Though it was only an hour, it felt like an agonizing eternity to Charlie. He eventually took out his phone and checked the time.  
6:15 PM.  
The drumming of rain outside had stopped now. They couldn’t hear anything but an eerie creaking noise.  
“We better go up,” Charlie said. Everyone else looked at him as if he was crazy. Maybe he was, but he wanted to see the damage. He needed to know. His parents will mostly certainly freak out over the mess.  
Slowly but with steady feet, everyone walked up the rock-hewn steps to the doors. Charlie unlocked them and shoved them open, spilling evening sunlight in that practically blinded everyone. There was barely a cloud in the sky now.  
Then Charlie reached ground level and his eyes widened at what he saw. The houses around him were in hopeless shambles. Though none of them had been completely leveled to their foundations, entire parts of them were simply gone, leaving behind broken husks.  
Charlie squeezed his eyes shut and turned so that he was facing the direction of his own home, then opened them. He could see inside his home since the wall was completely gone, revealing a decimated kitchen. The fridge was lying on the middle of the floor and broken glass was littered around it. Entire cabinet doors had been ripped off their hinges. Food and kitchen tools coated the countertops. Sally saw the mess too and covered her mouth in shock.  
“I wonder what happened to our house?” Linus asked, a hint of panic in his voice.  
Lucy didn’t say anything. She placed her hand on his shoulder and sighed.  
Charlie looked back at the backyard and tears welled up in his eyes when he then noticed that Snoopy’s house was scattered in pieces all over the yard, having been sprinkled across the yard in the form of broken red wood.  
“The typewriter,” Charles gasped. He ran to one of the bigger piles of red wood and started pushing pieces aside, trying to find Snoopy’s typewriter. So far he hadn’t noticed anything lying around that looked like it had been a part of it, so he had an ounce of hope that it was still whole and somewhere nearby. Once he reached the bottom of the pile, his heart expanded and pounded against his chest and eardrums. There it was. The typewriter was there and still mostly intact. There were a few more dents and some of the paint had peeled off, but was otherwise whole.  
With tears rolling down his cheeks, Charlie took the typewriter and lifted it onto his lap. Sally, Linus, and Lucy gathered around him and sank to their knees. They each placed a comforting hand on him, and though they were crying, they still smiled, happy for Charlie that something precious to him had survived the storm.  
“It’s going to be okay, Charlie Brown,” Linus said.  
Charlie was slightly surprised that Linus had called him by his childhood nickname. Maybe because this situation felt all too familiar to him. Everyone was gathered around Charlie as they tried to comfort him after yet another situation that put him in a rut.  
Charlie hugged the typewriter and everyone there hugged him. Amidst all the wreckage and destruction, they clung to each other still whole.

Charlie stood outside in his backyard, the mess from the storm having been cleaned up. Though it was going to take a little while longer for his house to be fully fixed, he was allowed to come to his backyard to see Snoopy’s typewriter, which was on the couch in the storm shelter for now. It was hard to put it somewhere that wasn’t out for everyone else to see, but putting it there felt special to Charlie. Today however, he was there for a different reason. Across from him, Lucy was on the ground waiting with a football planted in the grass.  
“You’re not going to do what you used to do, right?” Charlie asked.  
Lucy shook her head. “Nah. That was a long time ago. I’m willing to give you a chance.” She stopped and pulled a flirtatious smile.  
“Especially now that you’re my boyfriend,” she continued.  
Charlie raised his eyebrows. She wasn’t wrong. She didn’t look like she had any intent to pull anything at all. She kept staring at him expectantly, the football stayed rigid in its place.  
Despite all the previous times Lucy had convinced Charlie to trust him only to pull the rug out from under his feet, Charlie was willing to trust her this time. She was right about one thing. Things were different. His life wasn’t the same as it was before, which meant new chances and new opportunities. This time, he was willing to trust Lucy at this point in his life where she was actually there for him.  
He charged without warning Lucy, ready to kick the football once he reached it.  
This is for you, Sally.  
Once he got to the ball, he released his foot to kick it—and felt himself sail up into the air with his foot up. He screamed in surprise and landed hard on his back, feeling dazed after his head smacked the ground.  
Lucy had moved the football away at just the right second. She had tricked Charlie yet again.  
Charlie groaned but didn’t say anything. He should’ve known that that was going to happen. What was the game to Lucy if it didn’t?  
Lucy walked up to him, leaned down, and kissed him on the forehead.  
“Not everything changes, Charlie Brown.”


End file.
